Veblen, Commons, and the Modern Corporation : Why Management Does Not Fit Economics

At the end of the 19th century, the everyday activities of developing corporations modified the usual field of economic investigations. Nevertheless, economists were slow off the mark and seemed reluctant to give a proper place to this new player in their theoretical schemes. Thorstein Veblen and John R. Commons offered the first comprehensive history of the modern business firm. Little interested in the anatomy of the corporate leviathan, they rather sounded out its soul and analyzed its double-sided spirit, both pecuniary and industrial.